The Journey of a Non-Runner Turned Marathon Runner

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Learning From My Mistakes: Sometimes Less Is More

One of my resolutions this year was to complete a 30-day hot yoga challenge, and I had planned to start my challenge tomorrow. But yesterday morning while I was at the gym going in circles on the boring elliptical while wishing I was outside running in the perfect spring weather, I realized I don’t want to do yoga everyday for 30 days straight. I’d rather run.

Maybe it’s the perfect running weather or that I’m not stressed about training for a marathon and haven’t run farther than 8 miles, but whatever the reason (I imagine it’s a combination of the above), I’d rather run than go to yoga.

For some runners, that may be a daily reality. But for me, it is not, and I generally enjoy the act of yoga more than the act of running. I believe there are two types of marathon runners: The minority who enjoy the act of running, and the rest of us who love what running brings to our lives but don’t necessarily enjoy every run. I fall into the second category.

Sure there are moments of “OMG I love to run!” but those are few compared to the “Holy hell, running is hard!” I keep at it because those moments of running bliss make the tough moments/hours worthwhile, and because running makes me a better, more fulfilled human being.

Back to my original point (not sure if this post has one?): I’m indefinitely postponing my 30-day yoga challenge for the simple reason that I just don’t want to do it.

There are times in life when more is better. Would I rather have eight ounces of Nutella frozen yogurt or four? Eight, obviously. But yoga is not the same as fro yo, and as I learned last year when I ran races four weekends in a row, too much of a good thing ain’t always that great. By my fourth race, I wasn’t excited to run and just wanted to get the stupid race over, and I ran my worst half marathon of the year. Some runners enjoy racing that often, but I do not. Lesson learned.

At this point in my training/life, I would not enjoy doing yoga everyday. I would resent yoga and would be annoyed that it was taking time away that I could spend doing other things (running, playing tennis, sitting on my ass, etc.). It would become an item on my daily to do list — on par with cleaning the shower — not something that I enjoy doing. And I genuinely enjoy yoga, so I don’t want to eff that up with some silly challenge.

After writing this, I realized this might be my most pointless post ever (sorry!). But I guess the one takeaway is that more is not always better. Unless we’re talking about Nutella frozen yogurt — in which case, more is always better.